William Cohan on Goldman Sachs

William Cohan, writing in the New York Times about what he calls the "concerted effort by the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress to demonize Goldman Sachs":

Despite the political haymaking, the truth is that Goldman Sachs did nothing differently in the years leading up to the crisis than did other firms of its stature. Nothing has come to light in any of the very public recent assaults on the firm that also could not be discovered by looking through millions of documents at every other Wall Street firm with large trading and capital-markets businesses.

If anything, what has been revealed in all the reams of Goldman documents is that the firm was — and remains — a better risk-manager than any of its competitors.

He suggests Goldman give up its status as a bank holding company. He doesn't really get into the question of why Goldman has been demonized more than other firms, such as JP Morgan Chase.